Arle wanted to help me cook last week.  She told me she needed to go change first, though.

I expected her to come back with her apron on.

Instead she came back wearing her fanciest dress, “sprinkle socks”  (did you have these when you were a kid?  I did and I thought they were freakin’ awesome), and her winter hat (despite the fact the temps were in the 90s that day).

Maybe I’ll start getting fancy to cook dinner.  That could definitely spice things up a bit, right?

Is it just my child or do all children go through a cycle that looks something like this:

Sweet as can be for two or three weeks.  Naughty as can be for three or four days.  Then right back to sweet.

Arle just completed a naughty as can be phase.  Luckily, she seems to be right back to my sweet little angel baby.

Looking back on it, I have a feeling she was feeling a bit neglected last week.  It was a hectic week filled with watching others’ kids, my vein surgeries, and Trav working lots.

I had a follow-up appointment for my legs today and she accompanied me.  While the nurse was doing the ultrasound, Arle was perfectly perfect.  She sat in her chair and didn’t move a muscle or make a peep…except when she asked if she could get a Tic-Tac out of my purse.

Afterward, I had grand intentions of coming home and cleaning my house of the filth that currently resides within it.

Instead, I decided to just spend the morning with my favorite girl in the whole wide world.

Before leaving, we decided to go to the pond behind the hospital so she could show me the frogs she and her Daddy discovered while I was having my legs tended to last week.

She ran.  She skipped.  She bounced.  And, of course, talked non-stop.  She seemed thoroughly pleased to just spend time together.  She kept running back up to me and kissing my hand.

Melt my heart.

After that, we went to Barnes & Noble to look at books.

Then we decided to walk around a bit.  She spotted a shoe store and just had to go in.  She is definitely her mother’s daughter.

How shallow does it make me that I am so proud of my daughter’s ability to pick out fabulous shoes?

The exception to this would be when she picked up a pair of Crocs.

With Dora and Boots on them.

Gross.

I’m not a Crocs fan to begin with, but good grief, add characters to them and it’s like an ugly pair of shoes just became possessed by Satan.

Apologies to all of you Crocs fans out there.

We left the shoe store empty-handed, thank goodness.

Arle announced she was hungry, so we headed to Dean & Deluca for a lunch date.  My little foodie tried sushi for her first time.  She didn’t think it was too bad until she accidentally got a taste of wasabi from my chop stick and freaked out a bit.

On the way home she said, “Thank you, Mommy, for my fun day.”

I may or may not have gotten a bit choked up at that moment.

I love that girl.  Naughty or nice.

Our alarm went off at 5:30 this morning.  Unfortunate, to say the least. The peeps in this household like our zzzzz’s.

The reason for that sort of craziness?  I had surgery.  Don’t be alarmed…nothing major…nothing to do with the cyst I referred to yesterday.  This was for my ornery little varicose veins.

So many ailments, so little time.

No I’ve never been pregnant and evidently that doesn’t matter.  It’s all about genes and evidently I’ve got some bad ones when it comes to this sort of thing.

Yes, the veins are ugly.  But more than that, they hurt like heck.

Actually, who am I kidding?  No, they don’t hurt like heck.

They hurt like hell.

And I’m so glad that we’re finally doing something about it.

Today was leg #1 and tomorrow they’ll do leg #2.

I was kind of nervous going into the whole thing because I was convinced it was going to hurt.  Have you ever seen Brian Regan’s bit on doctors talking about “pressure”?  If not, click the link and go to the 3 minute and 25 second mark.

Well, my doctor had said over and over that I would only feel “pressure.”

“Great,” i thought . “I know what that means.”

But then I took this teeny tiny magic pill called vallium.

I had never been introduced to vallium until this morning and I’m now convinced that they really should change its name to “Three Shots of Tequila” because that’s exactly what I felt I had taken after about 20 minutes.

Or maybe I really was floating horizontally in the air and spinning in circles during the procedure…

Anyway, the actual surgery took about ten minutes and was pretty much pain-free except for when they gave me the shots of local anesthetic.  I was just thanking my lucky stars that the nurse was administering the shots and not Trav because oh my gosh have I told you how badly it hurt when he gave me a shot last week????

I didn’t realize until they were prepping me this morning that I had to lay down ALL DAY LONG today and tomorrow.  Hard to do when you have a three-year-old bouncing off the walls.  Trav has a huge brief due and would have been pretty stressed out to suddenly be stuck here instead of the office, so thankfully my sweet friend Kristin took Arle for the day so I can come back down from my vallium high and give my leg the tender loving care it requires.

I guess I might as well catch up on some episodes of Real Housewives.  They’re really starting to pile up on the ol’ DVR and we can’t have that now can we?  I wonder if the Three Shots of Tequila will make Danielle a bit less atrocious…not likely.  The stuff is good, but it can’t possibly be that good.

Toodles.

We spent most of last week in one of my favorite places on earth…Colorado.

We went to meet with our infertility doctor and have loads of tests run.  Trav and I were going to leave Arle here in KC with friends and just make a quick jaunt there and back.

But then we realized Trav’s parents and brother were going to be in Boulder the weekend before we would be there.  So, we decided to make a vacation out of the whole thing, packed up the car, and off we went to good ol’ Denver.

Arle was thrilled to get some Grammy, Papa, and Uncle B time.

Sidenote:  Remember when I posted about what I’ll look when I’m 58?  See the above middle pic to see what Trav will look like when he’s 60.  Sans mustache, I’m sure, but you still get the picture.

Trav’s brother, Brett, is a Jr. at the University of Colorado and gave us a tour of Boulder.

As much as this Sooner loves Norman, this Sooner must admit that Boulder is quite possibly the coolest college town I’ve ever visited.

I mean, I never once saw any fire jugglers in Norman.

And I definitely don’t remember Spiderman roaming around Norman.

Sidenote:  After I snapped this pic of Arle and Spidey, he  informed me that this is what he does for a living and requested that I pay him.    Would have been nice if he had told me that before I took the pic.

Update on the baby making front:  As I mentioned,  the main purpose of the trip was to meet with our doctor and have loads of poking and prodding done on Trav and me.

I tend to use humor as a coping mechanism during nervous times.  Poor Trav is usually the punch line.  I wasted no time making fun of him as he had to be given a juice box in order to avoid his usual reaction to having blood drawn.  The nurses kindly joined in on my fun.

And oh my gosh how I wish I had a video camera with me when he had to practice giving me a shot.  It’s a good thing he didn’t become a man-nurse because, holy cow, he is not good at it.  He’s a trooper for even giving it a go, though.  I’m so thankful I’m going through this with a fab guy like him…regardless of how shaky his hands get when he’s poking me with a needle.  I love my husband.

For the most part, all of the test results looked pretty good.  Unfortunately, they did discover a cyst that’s either on my ovary or fallopian tube.  We’re doing some follow-up tests to figure out exactly where it is and what needs to be done to make it go away.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated in regards to this pesky little fella.  I really really really don’t want to have surgery.  Please pray that it will go away on its own and that it goes away soon.  We can’t move forward with IVF until the cyst is gone.

Until next time…

I did something awful this morning and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.

Arle is known for two things.

1. Her ability to talk your ear off and properly use words that most adults don’t even know how to use correctly.

2. Her hair.

So, what heinous thing did I do this morning?  I stripped her of part of her identity. That’s what I did.

I had some girl who’s probably been out of cosmetology school for three whole days chop my baby’s hair off.

What kind of mother am I????????????

I asked her to cut off four or five inches.  Arle had it to spare.  I DID NOT however tell her I wanted eight or nine inches off.

This girl couldn’t seem to get it even and just kept cutting and cutting and cutting.  I felt as though I was watching Samson and Delilah and this 19-year-old kid was just stripping Arle of the thing she’s most known for…having fabulous hair.  {Isn’t that what Samson and Delilah was all about…him and his great hair???}

I mean, good grief, I could have just given Arle a pair of scissors, told her to go for it, and saved myself 18 bucks in the process.

Deep breaths, Heather, deep breaths.   It’s just hair.  It will grow back.

Good thing she’s so stinkin’ cute and could probably pull off a flat-top if needed.

P.S. Yes those are pirate tattoos on her arms.  Courtesy of Nate’s pirate birthday party loot.

P.S.S. Arle made that necklace and I’m pretty sure is going to insist on wearing it every single day for the rest of her life.

Yesterday some girl named Betty left a comment on my post that stated the following:

“A bit of a snooze to read, sorry.”

Perhaps it was a boring post but, geez Betty, didn’t your momma ever teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all???

Her comment actually made me laugh.

And then it  made me think.

It made me think about the fact that I’ve been avoiding writing lately because I have a lot on my mind and I couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to write about those things.

So, thanks to Betty, I’ll just go ahead and lay it all out there.

After trying to get pregnant for SIXTY-EIGHT MONTHS (that’s right, 68), Trav and I have decided it’s time to attempt IVF.

IV what?

IVF.  In-vitro fertilization.

Fun times.

I’ve gone back and forth a quadrillion times on whether or not I wanted to actually blog about this.

It’s something lots of people want to be hush/hush about.  Understandably so.  I mean, it’s an extremely emotional and grueling process.  I’ve had friends go through it and have a pretty good idea of how difficult it can be.

I decided to go ahead and just put it out there on the ol’ interwebs so that all of you who have prayed for our family through the years will continue praying for us.

The more, the merrier when it comes to prayers, right?

Also, if I do get pregnant I want people to know the real story.  I don’t want people going up to their infertile friends saying, “Well, I know this couple that tried for 68 months to get pregnant and, poof!, it finally happened.”  I realize these peeps have good intentions and all, but it’s not always as encouraging as you might think.  To me it’s every bit as bad as the people who would say to us while we were in the process of adopting Arle, “You just wait!  Right after you adopt, you’ll get pregnant!”   {Please, for the sake of all that is good and holy, DON’T say this to people who are adopting}

What I want people to know is that God is sovereign.  I know that He and He alone is the creator of life.  I also know that He sometimes uses doctors to help people get pregnant.  I know that no matter how fabulous our doctor is, we won’t get pregnant if it’s not the Lord’s will.  I know that if we do get pregnant all praise and honor and glory will be given to Him, not our doctor.

I could go on and on about what has gone into this decision and how we truly feel this is the direction the Lord is leading us.

But what I would rather go on and on about is how much we would covet your prayers during this time.  As I said, it’s not a pleasant process.  I’m going to be poked and prodded and forced to reveal my front hiney a lot.  Not my idea of fun.  {Have I ever mentioned that we dubbed girly parts as the “front hiney” in our household?  I had to come up with something to avoid saying the V-word}

And pray for Trav, too.  The poor soul is going to be forced to deal with the hormonal/emotional basket-case I’m sure to become, not to mention the fact that they’ll probably draw blood from him a time or two and OH MY GOODNESS can I just say that he doesn’t handle that very well…

So, for anyone wishing I wasn’t sharing all of this mumbo-jumbo, just remember to blame Betty.  It’s all her fault that I dumped this on you guys.

Cheers!

Is it obvious that I have a serious case of writer’s block, or what?

Trav has started calling me “Non-diggity.”

Not sure what my deal is, but I have totally fallen off the blogging bandwagon.  It’s definitely not for a lack of things to write about either.

I mean, I could have written about the fact that Trav was out of town for three weeks straight and how I came VERY close to going completely insane and being committed to a hospital with white padded rooms.

Or I could have written about how my bff from Texas drove up for a few days with her cutie-patootie son to keep Arle and me company while Trav was out of town.

Or I could write about the fact that I somehow convinced Trav to join me in doing a toxic cleanse.

{insert record screech}

Trav doing a toxic cleanse…say what???

Anyone who knows Trav well, knows he is not into the whole healthy lifestyle bit.  He’s a naturally skinny guy that can pretty much eat whatever he wants and somehow stay slim and trim.

He’s never been on a diet in his entire life.  Until now.

What we’re doing is based on the book Toxic Relief by Dr. Don Colbert.

I would give anything for you to have seen the look on Trav’s face as I read this sentence from the book aloud, “Acne, boils, and rashes are signs that your body is excreting toxins through your skin…”

He simply looked at me and said, “If I get a boil, I’m going to be pissed.”

The cleanse we’re on starts off with two full weeks of eating only fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, sprouted grains, and only a few ounces of organic fish or chicken per day.  No coffee, no alcohol, no sugar, no gluten, no processed anything.

The cleanse ends with a two or three day juice fast.  And we’re not talking about juice bought at the store.  We’re talking about freshly squeezed veggie/fruit juice made by yours truly.  My friend, Lindsay, gave me a juicing tutorial yesterday and we concocted a blend containing broccoli, purple cabbage, oranges, carrots, and apples.   It was actually really yummy!  Arle even lapped it up.

We’re almost done with the diet and will start the juice fast on Thursday.  Wish us luck.

We lead an exciting life, eh?  Now that you’re up to date on all of that excitement, I’ll leave you with this pic of Arle and Josh (my bff’s little boy).  They had a ball together, even though they fought like brother and sister at times.  We had SO much fun together and I can’t wait to see them again!

On my 4th of July post I used a pic that lots of peeps have asked questions about.  Peeps wanting to know who took it and where it was taken.

The uber-fabulous Jeremy Parsons took the pics here in KC at Swope Park.

We wanted pics of our fam that were casual. Laid back.  Outdoors.  Not too matchy-matchy.  Not too posed.

That’s just what we got.

Here are some of our faves from the shoot.

Have you joined Groupon?  If not, you must.  It’s basically a way to get fab discounts at your favorite stores, restaurants, salon, etc.

For instance, today’s Groupon offer in Kansas City is $30 worth of merchandise for only $15 at RSVP in the Village (one of my favorite stationery shops).

Click HERE to hop on over and get you Groupon.  You’ll be glad you did.

P.S. This isn’t just a KC thing. Groupon is in loads of cities and specifies it’s offers to the area you’re in.

Despite the fact that Arle’s been potty-trained for a year and a half, I still help with pulling her pants down, wiping, making sure she flushes and washes her hands, and all that jazz.

It’s ridiculous, really.  Why am I doing all of this?  Yes, it’s faster.  Yes, it’s less messy.  Yes, I’m a germ-a-phobe and can’t deal with the way she gropes the toilet when going by herself.

But she’s three-years-old and I need to let go

Last week I decided I am done.  She’s starting pre-school in a month and a half and needs to be able to do this.

Alone.

It’s a good thing I realized all of this when I did because it looks like we’re going to need some serious practice.

It sure will be difficult to make friends at pre-school with used TP hanging out of shorts that are pulled up to her boobies.